


Entropy

by starlight_firelight



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Literally, Asexual Doctor (Doctor Who), Dark Comedy, F/F, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, Mature because it's gonna get violent, Mild Gore, Mild Language, Paranoia, Slow Burn, Space Opera, Time Travel, duh - Freeform, kind of?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2019-08-10 22:53:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16463930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlight_firelight/pseuds/starlight_firelight
Summary: In this universe, The Doctor falls from the skies.In another one, she does not.





	1. Don't Fall, Drop

**Author's Note:**

> hey. so, much like my other fic, updates on this will be infrequent and sporadic. I've got a ton of schoolwork to do, along with frequent hospital stays to try and fix my broken lungs. I apologize for any inconvenience that this brings you, but life will be life.
> 
> I plan on this being anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 words long, and about ten to twenty chapters long. It really all depends on how fond I am of the plot, and if my lungs will cooperate with me for once in my life.

_“Whatever became of the moment when one first knew about death? There must have been one, a moment, in childhood, when it first occurred to you that you don't go on forever. It must have been shattering, stamped into one's memory. And yet I can't remember it. It never occurred to me at all. We must be born with an intuition of mortality. Before we know the word for it, before we know that there are words, out we come, bloodied and squalling...with the knowledge that for all the points of the compass, there's only one direction and time is its only measure.”_

 

Time swifts and sways in ways not unlike a flamenco dancer. She’s seen flamenco dancers. They’re quite nice, but not really as pretty as time itself.

It’s quite hard to find someone prettier than time.

She quite likes the way it dances.

This way, that way. What is one to do when they’re entrapped in the beauty of space and time?

Fucking marvel, mate.

Her TARDIS shares her affection for space.

(One would hope a _spaceship_ would be fond of _space _)__

__She’s somewhere near Betelgeuse now, at least she thinks she is._ _

__The nice thing about time is how bloody fluid it is._ _

__Humans are inventing mechanical plants and traveling through space and making it to the moon and then mars and beheading French aristocrats all at the same time._ _

__Time is fluid, in the sense that it always has been and always will be._ _

__Things don’t change much in space. The planets move apart and we grow endlessly closer to maximum entropy, yes, but in the scope of grander scales. Quadrillions of years in the future, there are new universes, new suns, and new inhabitants to each sun’s planets._ _

__Everything gets redone._ _

__Nothing stays exactly the same in space for long. It sounds a bit contradictory, but space is constantly shifting. Revolving, rotating._ _

__Nothing stays the same._ _

__It’s just so _pretty. Isn't it?__ _

__

__

__So, when she regenerates and her TARDIS tries to kick her out, she holds onto the railing tighter and doesn’t let go._ _

__She’s not yet ready to lose her TARDIS_ _

__Not yet ready to lose to space and time._ _

__Not yet ready to fall back down to earth and be stuck there._ _

__

__She crawls laboriously up to its control board, swivels a few levers, presses a few buttons, and rights the TARDIS._ _

__It spits and hisses, little sparks coming off of every visible wire._ _

__

__She parks it in an alleyway in Sheffield, England. Sometime around 2018, she thinks._ _

__She heads outside to vomit up regeneration energy, stumbling and doubled over._ _

__

__“Ma’am?” A hesitant voice comes from her left. She doesn’t turn her head to look at the owner of this voice, more focused on what feels like having your guts pulled  
out via your mouth while someone hacks at the rest of you with a dull blade._ _

__“Ma’am, are you alright? I’m a police officer. I can help or call an ambulance…Ma’am?”_ _

__By this time, The Doctor’s fallen down and shifted herself onto her back so she’s looking up at the sky._ _

__She’s sure she’s dying this time. Of course, she always is convinced of her own death. The only time she really died was because of River. yeah. She thinks so. “Don’t…  
no hospital. Please.” She manages to force a few strangled words out. Through her all-encompassing pain, she hears the footfalls of the owner of the voice as they walk over to her and crouch near her side. _ _

__It’s comforting to have someone by your side as you die._ _

__She closes her eyes and drifts into the darkness._ _

__

__She wakes up only moments later._ _

__Can’t fall asleep yet, she thinks. She opens her eyes and gets a good look at both the sky and the owner of the voice. They—she is wearing a rather garish police vest. She’s got dark-ish skin and pretty eyes. Her straight, black hair is pulled into a ponytail on the back of her head. She smiles. “Hello, Ma’am. Are you sure you don’t want me to call for an ambulance?”_ _

__The Doctor inhales, long and slow. Now it feels like she’s being stabbed with thousands of needles all over her body. “Nah, it’s quite all right. Why’re you callin’ me ma’am?” She coughs up a bit of regeneration energy, which develops into a fit of hacking coughs. She sits up and leans her back on the building she parked her TARDIS next to._ _

__The lady waits till The Doctor’s done hacking before she speaks. “Because…you’re a woman and it’s…polite?”_ _

__“A woman? Oh, yeah. I had forgotten--” She hugs her stomach and hacks up more regeneration energy._ _

__“What _is_ that?”_ _

__“Regeneration energy. Sorry. What’s your name?”_ _

__“Yasmin. Um…Khan. Yours?”_ _

__“Not sure. I’ll remember. How’s your day been, Yaz?”_ _

__“Ma’am, if you can’t remember your own name--” Yasmin shifts so she’s sitting cross-legged and closer to The Doctor._ _

__“It’s fine. Nothing I haven’t dealt with before. I think. Hey Yaz? Can I call you Yaz?”_ _

__“Sure. You’re positive you’re fine?”_ _

__“Yup. Just gotta let my insides sort themselves out and we’ll be fine.” The pain has subsided from needles to a dull ache, so she stands up using the wall for support and makes her way to the TARDIS. Yasmin follows her—probably to make sure she doesn’t keel over on the spot. Her TARDIS is probably still reconfiguring, of course. It just helps to be as close to it as possible. She turns into the alleyway and stumbles up to her lovely blue box. She doesn’t go inside—it probably won’t even let her in right now. They both need time to cool down. She slides down the side of the TARDIS and sits down with her legs stretched out._ _

__“Why’re you sitting on a police box? I didn’t even know that was here.”_ _

__"Oh, she’s my TARDIS. Lovely, isn--”The doctor collapses into another coughing fit._ _

__It doesn’t hurt quite as much as it did._ _

__She’s not dying (again), so that’s fun._ _

__“Hey, Yaz?”_ _

__“Yeah?”_ _

__“I’m just gonna go to sleep. Please don’t call an ambulance or take me to the hospital.”_ _

__“Yes, Ma’am.”_ _

__The Doctor closes her eyes, satisfied with that answer, and drifts into sleep and the journeys through space and time that come with it._ _

__

__

__

__

__Far, far away from earth, a planet explodes._ _


	2. Remember?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who left a comment or kudos. You keep me motivated. I'll do my best to reply to your comments, but I am but a simple human and am limited in time.
> 
> I, as a person who was born in and grew up in Punjab, am psyched out of my fucking mind for this next episode of DW. I wasn't the hugest fan of the Tsuranga Conundrum, but it was nice watching space lesbians be gay for an hour.

When someone leaves your life, those exits are not made equal. Some are beautiful and poetic and satisfying. Others are abrupt and unfair. But most are just unremarkable, unintentional, clumsy.

 

_”Things don’t work like that, Yasmin. You can’t just bring random people here. It’s not a bloody hospice. Take her to the hospital. What are you even thinking?”_

_“She said she didn’t want—I mean, I just feel like it would be dishonest and rude.”_

_”The world doesn’t work like that. Take her to the hospital or I’ll call an ambulance. In fact, you should be working. Do you want to get fired? Just go back to work and I’ll call the hospital.”_

 

The doctor doesn’t like people arguing over her. She also doesn’t like being woken up to early in her regeneration-induced sleep. Which is why when she flops herself off of the couch she’s been placed on with care, she allows herself a moment of satisfaction at Yaz’s little yelp of concern.

“Yaz, you’ve woken me up to early.” She says, snorting up a bit of regeneration energy the way one would snort up milk during laughing very hard. (She’s over three thousand years old and has yet to experience that fun thing) 

“What the hell is that?” Says the person Yaz was talking to.

“Regeneration energy. Who are you?” The doctor rolls onto her back and looks at the ceiling. She likes looking up at things, apparently. There’s a crack in the ceiling that kind of reminds her of-- _what?_ it’s a whole lot easier to remember things once your brain’s been completely sorted out. She still has a bit of ‘rude Scotsman’ muddled in with whatever personality traits her brain tissue has to offer.

“Najia. Are you alright? If so, I want you to leave.” Najia (presumably Khan, but the doctor doesn’t like assuming things) is a slight woman, with middle-length black hair and a face that the doctor can’t make out right now due to fuzzy vision that comes with both being woken up too early in your sleep cycle and being mid-regeneration. Funny that, eh? She hates not being able to see. She’ll probably need to pick up a pair of glasses somewhere. She doesn’t really need them, she just thinks they make her look clever, a bit more doctor-y she went full-on sunglasses last time, maybe she should go back to round silvery ones. Glasses are cool, after all.

“Hello, Najia. I don’t know. Yaz, could you help me up?”

“Sure.” Yaz grabs The Doctor’s outstretched hand, and pulls her to her feet. The doctor stumbles a little, orients herself, and brushes of her hands on her pants. She looks down at her clothes. They’re too big for her, which is a shame. She liked being tall. They’re also very dark and kind of Goth-y. Gothic? Words, man. Wasn’t that her second or third Goth phase? She can’t really remember. She straightens up, facing Yaz and Najia.

Yaz has since gotten rid of her neon police vest, replacing it with a leather jacket. “Yaz, d’you have a kettle? I like kettles. No, no. tea. Yes. I like tea. Not so sure about kettles. Are kettles in? I always forget. Was it the twenty-second or -first century when you made better water heaters? Anyway, what do I use to make tea? Tea helps me when I’m regenerating. At least, it has before. Not positive ‘bout it now. Things change, you know? But tea. Yeah. How do I put a kettle on?”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but who are you?” Najia asks. The Doctor’s vision is so blurry at this point that the only way she can tell Yaz from Najia is the bright blue shirt Najia’s got on.

“Oh, me? Um, I can’t—I think—I don’t know. Seem to have forgotten my name, you know the feeling. Awfully easy thing to forget, yeah?”

“Not…really.”

“Huh. I had a friend once who forgot her name. Human memory only extends so far, you know?”

Najia doesn’t know, of course. The Doctor finds her way into what seems to be a kitchen, ignoring the protests of both Yaz and Najia, and turns on what could possibly be a stove that most certainly has a kettle on it. She stands there and stares at the kettle, waiting for it to come to a boil. Her vision clears some, and her mind continues to knit itself together. She remembers things. She remembers so, so much. She remembers Amy and Rory, and Rose and Dona and Martha and Clara and Bill. Bill, yes, Bill. Bill stings the most. ( _I waited for you…_ ) She hates losing people, and she hates remembering.

 

 

Far away from earth, another planet explodes. And another, and another, and another, going on like that indefinitely, taking stars, planets, meteors, moons, space junk. Everything explodes. Explodes and explodes and explodes, converging upon a single planet, a single person, and ancient alien that has long wronged their people.

On The Doctor.

The Doctor, the most hated and loved Gallifreyan to ever exist. The Doctor, The Destroyer of Worlds, The Doctor of War, of peace, of candyfloss and hope and science and medicine and time. Technically billions of years old, incredibly powerful, an unstoppable force of nature, and guilty of some of the worst crimes in the universe.

 _Tampering with time, attempted genocide, first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, suicide, interference, wanton violence…_ the list goes on and on, for far too long to list all of the crimes. Even if you spent a full human lifetime, from birth to death, reading the crimes of the doctor, you would die before reading even a hundredth of their crimes. The only person with a worse sentence than The Doctor is River Song, who killed the doctor. Funny how life works  
that way.

Things explode. Galaxies disappear as whatever force has been harnessed by whoever deems themselves powerful enough to bring a sentence upon the doctor grows endlessly closer to the Milky Way (Galaxy number 420 of section 69 as deemed by the intergalactic council) and to the Solar System and to earth.

 

Galaxies die.

 

Time moves on as if nothing ever happened.


	3. Jigsaw

_When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth._

Teacups nestled in hands, to do the warming that Yaz’s chilly apartment cannot. A chair that is neither comfortable nor uncomfortable, that exists in some kind of previously unachievable stasis. Yaz, who stares at The Doctor like she’s fallen out of the sky and into the comfortable/uncomfortable chair. Yaz’s mum, who looks in between Yaz and The Doctor, not choosing to focus her attention on any one thing. A spider meandering up the wall. Vase. Couch that is a very nice shade of—some color. These things, simple words one would usually know, they don’t come to The Doctor easily during regeneration. Strange hazel eyes and dyed blonde hair reflecting back at her from window glass. These are all little realities. They fit together like puzzle pieces in the neatest of ways.

Thoughts. The bitter taste of good ol’ English tea. The endless ticking of a clock. Silence that comes from being in a stranger’s apartment. From having two pairs of eyes drill into you like you’re a mystery that aches be solved. The unconscious tapping of Najia’s foot, the kind that comes from residual frustration. Frustration, of course, over her daughter bringing home an objectively attractive half-alive woman who messes up her kitchen and makes weird comments about regeneration and barfs up gold light and dresses like her clothes have been lit on fire and sucked through a meat grinder. These are immaterial realities. They exist on the edges of the universe. They are the little gusts of breath coming from the Puzzlemaker. They are sensory. They are easily faked, easily replicated. Do they exist?

Then there are the things that aren’t really a reality at all. Things that are so secret or so imaginary that they’ve ceased to count as ‘real’. One might say stories in books are ‘real’ because they are words printed on pages, and therefore they exist. One might say oral folk tales are ‘real’ because they pass throughout the world in sound waves, minutely echoing to the far reaches of space. There are the things, though, that are by every definition ‘real’ but have for so long been forgotten that they’ve vanished from reality. Things that have forgotten their own names, their own existence. Are they realities once they’ve ceased to consider themselves as such? Time passes, unempathetic and psychopathic as realities fade and crumble into dust. Can something exist and not be a reality? These things, these extant unrealities, are the Puzzlemakers. They don’t know it, but they painted, cut, and carved the puzzle. They broke it up and pieced it back together bit by bit with love. And then they stuck it on their shelves with all their other puzzles and let it gather dust. They forgot the puzzle as they forgot themselves.

One of the main problems with verbal communication is initiating it. Once you’ve built yourself into a barricade of awkward silences, it’s difficult to be the first person to break it down. The Doctor’s usually good at conversation, being a charismatic alien from space and all. (Screw that, I guess)

“So… Right. Hello. Nice to meet you, if you wanna head down the formal side. I don’t know my name, but I’ll get it soon. You’re Yaz,”—The Doctor points at Yaz. Yes, even though her mother used to tell her it was rude. That was three thousand years ago. She’s a fucking adult, thank you very much—“You’re Yaz’s mum, and I’m very sorry to be intruding. I can leave if you want, my TARDIS should be done regenerating now.”

“Regenerating? You keep using that word, but it doesn’t make sense.” Says Najia. 

“I mean—It’s kind of complex. Basically, though, my TARDIS is reconfiguring—my TARDIS is my spaceship, by the way—reconfiguring itself to account for any changes in anything at all. I’m regenerating because I died. I died because a buncha metal people killed me and—kinda--my friend. Are we good? Chill? Oh, no. I shouldn’t say that, very bad, very bad. Embarrassing, really.”

“Sorry, must’ve misheard you there. Died?”

“Died. Yes. A couple hours ago, I was a grey-haired Scotsman that owned a guitar. I’ll miss that guitar. I should get a new one. And new glasses. Oh, and a sonic. Lovely little queued up shopping list I’ve got now, eh? Don’t usually do shopping lists.”

The Doctor’s used to being stared at like she’s stark raving insane, the kind of insane that belongs in a nursing home with schizophrenia medication being administered thrice daily. Yaz’s mum is staring at her like that. The interesting thing, though? Yaz isn’t. She’s looking at The Doctor like she’s making sense. Like she’s someone worth listening too. That’s rare and amazing and heart-warming. 

“Madam, D’you want to stay here for tonight? You can sleep on the couch, and we’ll let you be on your way in the morning. I just don’t want you having another fit—or whatever that was—in the middle of a street or something.”

“Yeah, I’d like that. Don’t think I’ve ever slept at anyone’s place. Well, there was that one time with Marilyn Monroe, but that makes me feel quite a bit like vomiting. Didn’t used too. Funny how things change, in‘nit?” 

Najia Khan looks very uncomfortable. People, they just aren’t as open with sexual connotation as they were/will be/are (tenses get confusing when you travel in time) in the 3000s.

“I didn’t used to be a—lady? Time Lady? Damnit, what’d Missy call it? Bill’s right, I need to change that. Anyway. I’m not sure, but what year is it, exactly? Twenty-eighteen? Nineteen? Brexit’s a thing, right?”

“Yeah… How do you not know what year it is? And, might I ask, Marilyn Monroe?” Yaz says, looking more than a little dubious.

“Sorry. Time’s a bit funny. Might be the regenerating bit. And yeah, I think I got engaged to her? Not sure if I married her. Memory is also a bit funny right now. I still can’t remember my name. But um… Oh dear.” The Doctor slumps down onto the table, effectively spilling tea over every available surface.

(A note: Time Lord Biology is a curious thing. It’s not really like the physiology of any other species in the universe. Two hearts isn’t unheard of, but in addition to that—to maintain the pumping of those two hearts, something necessitated because of their bipedal anatomy—Time Lords have a bunch of pulmonary tubes that extent beyond their lungs to supply more oxygen to the rest of their body. It also has to do with the oxygen concentration on Gallifrey. Approximately 21% or earth’s atmosphere is oxygen, in comparison to Gallifrey’s 15.7% concentration. Gallifrey’s atmosphere also contains a lot of phosphorus and argon, and only 25% of its atmosphere is nitrogen. Anyway, these pulmonary tubes, combined with their large lungs, making it very easy for them to swim. They don’t sink so well, but better to float and stay alive than to sink and drown, yeah? They also can survive in zero oxygen conditions for up to three hours longer than non-Time Lord life forms. It also has some downsides. Directly after regeneration, when some of their pulmonary valves aren’t fully formed, things like fast and flustered breathing can cause mucus buildup in some of their thinner pulmonary valves pretty easily, decreasing oxygen input to their blood, and by extension, their brain. This causes them to fall unconscious without warning.)

The Doctor, now unconscious, is left with only the sound of a child’s voice—a voice that seems to possess no gender or definite age, and a strange, cold air to it—repeating a phrase that she can’t seem to remember hearing before.

( _Puzzlemaker, Puzzlemaker, run away home. Your house is on fire, your children are gone._ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this ten hour-long dissertation, I will describe the entirety of Time Lord physiology and anatomy, a topic that has fascinated humans since we had the cognitive ability to be fascinated in such frivolities as anatomy and physiology--


	4. Eviscerate the Darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HA BITCH it's a frequent update betcha didn't see that one coming. Consider this an early chapter to celebrate the fact that finals are coming up and December is rough.

_What's that in the mirror, or the corner of your eye? What's that footstep following, but never passing by? Perhaps they're all just waiting, perhaps when we're all dead, out they'll come a-slithering, from underneath the bed._

Night falls the way one would fall off of Big Ben—sudden. Abrupt. Painful. The kind of nightfall that comes without warning, an unwanted darkness that blankets half of the world.

 

On nights Yasmin Khan can’t sleep, she looks at the stars. 

She fixes herself some tea, pulls back the curtain to the largest window in her apartment, and gazes into the endless expanse of indigo and orange that is the night sky. There’s never a lot of stars out, of course. But there are stars. Who needs more than that? There are no stars tonight, though. There is only darkness. There are fat, white dollops of snow that drift through the sky in unnatural splendor, false stars in a summer landscape. It gets colder at night—a fact not surprising to anybody who’s had a bit of an education or has stepped outside once darkness falls—but it’s not supposed to get quite so cold so fast. It was 28° Celsius and bloody sweltering at around three in the afternoon, but now? Now, in the cold clutches of three in the morning, it’s -6. It’s _snowing_ in _August_. The snow has taken the place of the stars, acting as an unpracticed understudy for the lead role of nighttime.

Yasmin Khan is fond of the dark. Not unusually fond, mind you. The normal kind of fond. The mildly apathetic fond that only encompasses natural darkness, that paints it in an acceptable light. The kind of fond that ignores it, because to hate the darkness would be far too extreme. Yasmin Khan does not have the time to care about the dark, so she is fond of it.

Tonight, though. Tonight the darkness feels malicious. An unkind dark that drops too early. It is the wolf in the sky that signals Ragnarok, The darkness at the end of Ishtar’s journey into the underworld. It’s the darkness in which Owain Glyndŵr was laid to rest, the night that so encompassed the frozen corpse of Victor Frankenstein. Haplessly cruel, a night that had no business to fall, yet fall it did.

Yasmin Khan is awake. She is awake at this ungodly hour, not because she wants to be, but because she is afraid that if she sleeps or lets her guard down, if, even for a moment, she takes her eyes off of the darkness outside her window, it will swallow her up. It will eat her, leave her bones sitting on the pavement for some unlucky survivor to discover. The night sky feels like a terrible place. Bright lights go out in such a place, live things die in such a place, such a place outside her window. There are no stars in the inky black-and-indigo sky, the sky that shouldn’t be so dark. This is Sheffield, a city. A city with light poisoning. No orange on the horizon tonight, though.

Yasmin Khan is sitting near the regenerating lady—who, after abruptly passing out, was carried back to the couch where she remains, unmoving save for a few instances of coughing up golden smoke and muttering about pears—and is looking out the window. Yasmin’s got a cup of tea and the nagging feeling in the back of her head that opting out of work as a police officer—a job one should not opt out of if one wants to keep said job—even for one bloody afternoon, is something that will at least earn her some kind of demerit.

Yasmin Khan does not take her eyes off of the sky. Well, she does. Just once, to spare a passing glance at the regenerating lady. The regenerating lady, the woman without a name. The almost alien-like person that seems to be a harbinger for the strange darkness of the night. Strange things are happening, she thinks. But why? Does it matter? She supposes so. But, either way, she carries on. She’s British, and British people carry on. After all, she’s Yasmin Khan. She doesn’t shy away from danger. She doesn’t want to die though. So, just a mild, average amount of danger. Not too much.

 

Yasmin Khan sits there, at the window with the regenerating lady and the malicious dark for what feels like—and is—hours. She sits there until the sun comes up and banishes the darkness, until the snow stops pretending to be stars.

 

The regenerating lady wakes with the sunrise. She wakes abruptly and loudly—seemingly the only way she can wake up—talking to herself about someone named Bill and about pears. She really doesn’t like pears, it would seem. Yasmin fixes her a cup of tea, and they sit on the couch drinking their respective drinks (coffee for Yasmin, she didn’t sleep a wink and needs that friendly jolt of caffeinated energy). They sit and listen to the silence.

It’s the quiet kind of Saturday morning, the very early kind where one would think the entire word’s asleep. It’s bright, every corner of the apartment painted orange by the rising sun. The regenerating lady looks almost ethereal in this light, like she’s on fire or like she _is_ fire. She sits hunched over her tea. She’s bedraggled and dirty and she smells like engine smoke and custard creams. She is, in fact, a mash-up of strange and unnatural things.

“You’re staring.” The regenerating lady says, poking holes in the silence.

“Am I? Sorry. I—I’m just curious. You’ve mentioned death and something about Scotsmen a lot when talking about regeneration, but what does that all _mean_?”

“Well, it’s like—are you sure you want to know? ‘Cause you can’t un-know this. Well, you can, but only in very extreme circumstances. It’s weird, and your probably not gonna believe me, but I’ve—my box, the blue one? I’ll show you that too. If you care to know.”

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

“Okay. Well, to start—don’t interrupt, yeah? I’m not human. I’m a Time Lord, from the planet Gallifrey. Two hearts, regeneration, time machine, the whole deal. My blue box? That’s my TARDIS, and she’s both a time machine and a spaceship. My regeneration thing is just like—every once and a while my old body will die, and I’ll just kind of…find a new one. Not find, really. More like make. I’ll make a new one. New body, new personality, same Time Lord. This”—the regenerating lady gestures at her burnt-up and suited self—“This is my…thirteenth? Fourteenth? Something like that. Yes. This is my thirteenth regeneration. First time I turned out female, so that’s pretty neat. You wanna see my TARDIS? I suppose it’ll have stopped atomizing or whatever by now.”

“most definitely.”

 

 

 

Time works in mysterious ways, lad. It doesn’t work like you think it does. It revolves in circles just like everything else. 

 

Well, lad. Not like _everything_ else. There’ one thing so old that it doesn’t revolve in a circle anymore, it’s straightened itself out, if you will. Beware things that move in straight lines, lad.

 

They’ll eat you up for dinner.


	5. Chronicity

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably won't update this until January because I'm going to see family in India during Christmas break and there's no way I'm bringing my computer there.

_Our story begins in the Void._

_A nasty place, the Void. Blustery and pitch black and full of Daleks and Time Lords and Cybermen and all sorts of terrible dæmons of old. Let’s focus on the Time Lords for a moment, shall we? Or rather, Time Lord. Singular. Uno. Ichi. However you choose to word it. Our story might begin in the Void, but in reality it begins with them. It begins with the first Time Lord to be cast into the Void, to be left to fester for the most grievous of crimes. You call The Doctor ‘World Destroyer’, yes? Well, that moniker might be more usefully applied to our Not-So-Much-A-Time-Lord-Anymore._

_The Void is a remarkably harsh place. Death Valley and the Dead Sea and Antarctica all pale in comparison to the Void’s coldness, its dryness, and its utter apathy. The place leaks apathy, oozing it from every perceived crack in reality. It is, essentially, the real-world example of large scale entropy. Of the kind of entropy that has so completely taken effect, that has become wholly entropic with no chance of supporting life. It has a simple _khthónios_ to it, an earthy un-earthliness that contradicts itself in to nonexistence. _

_Entropy is a strange thing; how it changes things, how it makes them decay. Would we be better without it?_

_We zoom in on a specific figure. (Humanoid and elegant, curled up and shaking, screaming and crying.) Do you see their skin? See how pale it is, see its Jigsaw markings? See its chemical makeup? (Silicon-based life forms exist, darling.) They are not as they once were, not so splendid, not so kind. They used to be lively. They had friends and they laughed and they loved. But, like we all do, they took it too far. They are too old, to tired, to feel any sort of remorse. The wind has washed away their carbon and their love, replacing it with the dull antipathy of silicon._

_In the Void they have festered and evolved, so old, so very very old. How many times can the Doctor regenerate? How many times can a lizard grow back its tail? Chthonic and ancient, malignant and wise. As Pablo Neruda said, is it because it must die or because it must carry on? What do you do when you have nothing left to lose? Where do you go when there’s nowhere else to hide?_

_Corpse-Maker, Dream-Hater, Time-Breaker, Light-Taker, Earth-Shaker, Love-Faker,_

 

_Puzzlemaker_

 

 

 

The Doctor hates regenerating. Not necessarily because of the pain—also because of the pain, but to a lesser extent—but because of the memories. She forgets it all, if only for a moment. She forgets other worlds, she forgets Gallifrey, she forgets Bill and Dona and Amy and Rose and Jamie and Jack and Martha and everyone else whose lives she’s ruined. She forgets the TARDIS, she forgets the cold of space pushing in on her, she forgets. She forgets and she forgets, and she forgets.

But then she remembers. She remembers all of her failures, all of the times she’s gone too far, the times she couldn’t save anyone. 

She remembers.

She remembers and she remembers and she remembers.

And she doesn’t forget.

 

 

 

“Why do you believe me?” The Doctor asks as she follows Yaz around Sheffield in search of the TARDIS.

“I don’t really know. You—you cough up gold smoke, ma’am. You seem strange enough to believe. Either that or I’m taking a schizophrenic seriously.”

“Well, I’d hate for that to be true. Someone called me a schizophrenic once. I think that was a dream, though. Dream states are, quite frankly, terrible.”

“Don’t think I’m dreaming. Here, I’ll pinch—Ow. Yep, not dreaming.”

“Why d’you humans always do that?”

“What?”

“Pinch your arm? It just seems like masochism for no real reason. Even if you were dreaming, your mind can fake pain. Have you ever felt a pain in your arm or some other body part that’s unprompted? Why shouldn’t you be able to feel pain while dreaming? Your mind can fake nearly anything.”

“I suppose. I figure we’re both conscious, yea? I don’t think you’re something my brain cooked up.”

“Thank you. Not many people say that about me, you know?”

“You’re very strange, ma’am.”

“I aim to be. Or maybe I don’t. Still figuring out my thought processes, might take a bit before I know who the--”

“Turn here, onto George,” Yaz says, motioning to the right.

“Thanks. Ah, there she _is_.” 

And yes, there she is. She’s the bright-but-dark sort of blue that only she can properly pull off, the beautiful kind of police box that the Doctor will never try to fix. ( _She remembers that night, that quiet night when she parked in a dump-ish place, where she talked to her daughter and where she was so young, so very very young. she had so much. No matter, no matter. She really did, though. She had so much. The TARDIS stole her away, of course. She wanted to leave, she wanted to forge her own way in the world. She wanted to help people in the ways the rest of the Time Lords were far too afraid to do. The Master won’t ever—no, the Master’s gone now too. Forgiving's not possible, yeah? No Master, no daughter, only the TARDIS to tie her to what her planet once was. To the thriving pre-war beauty full of so much life, so much kindness._ )

 

The Doctor tries the door. It’s got the familiar creak to it, the lovely wood feeling that bears so much meaning.

 

It opens.

But not to her TARDIS.

To an empty, small, blue phone box. To a police box from circa the 1940s, to a normal box with no bigger-on-the-inside-ness, with no glowing lights or Darth-Vader’s-breath sounds. 

All that’s left is a little navy blue post-it note attached to the back wall. A paper that would blend in with the box perfectly, if not for the words it bears.

Written in a white pen, with downright sloppy circular Gallifreyan,

_'Think again, bitch'_


	6. Enter Player One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A month without uploading she comes back with a tag  
> (seriously, though, I'm sorry about how fucking terribly late this is)

And the world burns.

The Doctor crumples the indigo post-it note in her hand. She rolls it into a ball, tosses it around for a moment, unfurls it. Thinks.

And the world disappears.

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light, though kind men—no, no. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night.” The Doctor mutters, spins in a circle, sits down on the curb, and puts her head in her hands. “Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the…”

“Dying of the light.” Yaz says, sitting down next to the Doctor. “Dylan Thomas?”

“Dylan Thomas.”

“I take it that police box isn’t supposed to be empty?”

“No. No, it’s really, really not supposed to be empty.”

“Most police boxes where, you know.”

“I know. It’s—she’s supposed to be bigger on the inside. There’s this thing… you’ve heard of pocket dimensions, right? It’s kind of that. There’s supposed to be an entire other dimension behind those doors, and it’s gone. ” The Doctor shoves the post-it into her charred pocket. She gets up, opens the door to her TARDIS, stands inside, tests the walls. Nothing. Gone.

And then—

The little blue box explodes, fractures into thousands of little splinters. And they’re standing in the TARDIS, but it’s not right, not right at all. It’s lit by red lights, it’s—she’s screaming, and she’s glitching. Glitching in the way a video game might glitch, where the building it was near has broken though the wall and a lamplight has stabbed up though the console. Not cleanly, mind you. Bent metal, scattered wood, and all sorts of small miscellaneous objects are spread around the floor.  
A lilting, joyful voice filters through the speakers positioned at the edges of the TARDIS by the Doctor’s previous regeneration. It’s there, but it’s glitchy--like a phone call with an awry connection. _”Hello, Doctor. Oh, and is that…Yasmin? I remember you. Nice girl, didn’t deserve what she got. Well, judging by the hair and the clothes ad your clueless expression, Doctor, I think that I’ve come too early in my time stream. Too late to leave, though. Too late to leave. I’ve got this far, so I might as well read off of my note cards… here we go...and I’m starting my planned speech, Doctor, so wipe that befuddled look off of your face and let me talk. The world isn’t fair, Doctor. Of course, that’s something you already know. But Doctor, take my advice. Please, listen to me. If it’s the last thing you do—just listen. I’ve broken so many chains to get here, Doctor. I’m interfering with my own timeline. Paradoxes and such right? Bet that’s got you just chuffed. You’ll be the last one, Love. The worlds will fade and the universe will crumble to dust through your fingertips, and you’ll be alone. The man without a home, the lonely god, maybe those names will finally be true--but who’s to say? You go on and on, and you’ll never stop. Maybe it’s time you stopped, doctor. Isn’t two thousand years enough? You’re greedy, Doctor. You just keep on living and never think about those who can’t. I’ve had so long to think about this, but Doctor, just…stop. Ed it here and leave the world in peace. Let Danny pink’s impossible grandson be the last thing in the universe and succumb to your age. But if you don’t want to—if you’re still to selfish, just heed my advice. I’ve give you your TARDIS back—I do think I accidentally fused your dimension with the TARDIS’s, but I’ entirely sure you can solve that--don’t follow the voices. They will bring only sorrow. Please, even if you have to die, don’t follow the voices. They lie and they lie and they promise so many things, but don’t follow them. I know you don’t like omens or prophecies, and I know you hate breaking your own rules, but I’m saving something—isn’t that alright? I think you’ll forgive me in the end. I hope you’ll forgive me. Please forgive me._ By the end of their speech, the joy that was there has leaked out as they got quieter and quieter, more and more solemn. The connection cuts off, and leaves only silence in its wake.

 

The Doctor shakes her head twice to clear it—something that never works—and leans on the lamppost protruding from the TARDIS. Time continues in the direction it normally chooses to continue in. “So, at least I know my name now. Hello, Yaz, I’m the Doctor. Sorting out fair play throughout the universe, helping people as I go, learning, always learning. Though, I suppose that’s not the most important thing in this situation. The very ominous voice might be more pressing—if I… ”

She proceeds to walk over to the TARDIS console, roll up her sleeves, and stick her hands into the goo-that-reads-your-thoughts. “If this works, Yaz, it’ll be really good. If it doesn’t, I might explode the universe, so you might want to—I dunno, cover your ears?” Yaz covers her ears. 

And, after some furrowed brows, complaining, and a great deal of waiting, the world fails to explode. On the one hand, that’s a good thing. Nice to not have a permanently nonexistent universe. On the other, worse hand, they brush aside some rubble and open the door into deep space. 

“No—that’s not what’s supposed to happen. It’s supposed to read my thoughts and take us to where the voice came from, but I hardly believe it came from here.  
This has happened before, though, so I suppose it’s a fallible system.”

“Do you want to try again?”

“Well, I think since we’ve come this far, we might as well investigate. You ever worn a space suit?”


	7. Voidal

Space is silent.  
The kind of silent that happens when something goes wrong. Space’s silent sounds like a mistake. Is it supposed to be this quiet?

 

Yasmin Khan has never been in a spacesuit. She hasn’t been in space either, but sometimes it’s better to start with the small problems.

 

The past is the present is the future—what hasn’t been done is done. (She can still cut herself open in a straightjacket)

 

There are days when you wake up feeling lovely, and there are days where you wake up bleeding out of your ear.

 

She had a family once—she wonders if they’ll miss her.

 

Time is time is time—what is there to change? He doesn’t remember getting run over by a train. 

 

She doesn’t remember last night. In fact, she doesn’t remember any of the nights before that either. Do you exist without your mind?

 

“Every time you kill someone, it’s like you give a little bit of your ability to feel pain to them. Once you’ve killed enough, you can let go of your pain entirely. It’s an exchange. You take my pain, I give you the sweet release of death.”

 

_There are so many bad things in the world, Yasmin. We walk through here attempting to correct the wrongdoings of our forefathers. Remember Gandhi, little one? And remember Malala Yousafzai and Dartanyon Crockett and Hayley Kiyoko and all of the other people out there making the world better for you? They’re who we thank at night, love. Do you remember Frida Kahlo? I think you look like her. But hush, don’t tell anyone. If you ever wake up at night and feel lonely and sad, remember that there are people out there who care, okay? They care—we care--that you make it out of this world happy. So don’t you go doing that again. You hear me? Your life is far too precious to throw away. I didn’t name you like Yasamanah for nothing, right my little flower?_

 

Space is extraordinarily loud. Except, the Doctor notes, this is not space. They are not floating in the wide expanse of blackness she’s become so very familiar with. Rather, they’re floating in what would look like an antigravity-inspired junkyard to the untrained eye.

The Void.

She hasn’t been in another dimension for ages _oh this is so much fun._

Wait.

Fuck.

The Void. The Void? _Void? ___

__

__“Yaz, this is—well, I hate to say it but this is very wrong. This shouldn’t be happening. Can you get back in the TARDIS, love?”_ _

__

__“Yeah. Just let me—oh, that’s a funny thing.”_ _

__

__“What is? What does it look like, Yaz? Sorry, can’t turn around right now, gotta figure this out.”_ _

__

__“It’s blobby, like a really ugly sick octopus that only eats blue food colouring.”_ _

__

__“Yeah, I might want to turn around. TARDIS, now.”_ _

__

__She scans her memory—gosh, if only she had a fancy mind palace like Sherlock Holmes—but that’s beside the point. Daleks are blue octopi-things that live in the Void, right? So, Dalek without a shell. Not too dangerous. The only worry being Dalek with a shell. Daleks tend to come in groups. Like birds. Little bloody hermit-crab-octopus-birds, they are.  
She turns around. _ _

__

__Yup, definitely a Dalek. She reels herself closer to the TARDIS with her tether, as to get a better look at it. Yaz, she notices, has just disappeared into the TARDIS. It can sometimes be hard to understand, but Daleks do die. She doesn’t understand it, even after to many hollow years of learning. Well, die might be wrong. They… Decompose. Rot, melt, dribble. This one’s rotting. It’s that sickly blue colour most Daleks maintain outside of their shell, but it’s rotted in parts, flesh browning and peeling and, under its eye, dripping. It doesn’t appear conscious. She pulls herself all the way back into the TARDIS, closes its (her) doors behind her, and gets to work._ _

__

__“Sorry, Yaz. Usually this doesn’t go quite so badly. It actually tends to go quite well.” She glances up from the control panel. Yaz is busy struggling to wriggle out of her space suit without splitting her skull on the TARDIS’s railing and falling down a story._ _

__“Nah, it’s fine. I’m used to trouble. Well, not this kind of trouble, you know. What with the voices and the spaceship and all. Still, not too shabby experience-wise.”_ _

__“Good. Oh, no—take your arm out first… yes like that. Good. All out?”_ _

__“Yep.”_ _

__“So, quick overview of what the hell just happened. That was a dying alien you saw, nothing too terrible. The worst part is that we are in a different dimension from which I have no idea how to escape. I haven’t been stuck in the Void for a long, long time. The Void – this dimension—is sort of like the garbage-pit-slash-prison of the universe. All the bad things are here, basically. Cybermen, Daleks, radioactive waste, basically anything bad you can think of, it’s here. You’re safe in the TARDIS, so don’t freak out, but. That’s about it.”_ _

__“Not freaking out, promise,” Yaz walks over, leaving her space suit discarded on the floor near her neon police vest. “What, then? We’re just stuck here forever? ‘Cause if so, I might start to freak. I had to pick up bread for my mum, you know. Possibly not a great situation if I just never returned home.”_ _

__“I don’t think that’s the case yet. If I can just do the same thing I did to get here—stick my hands in the jelly and tap my ruby slippers and wish my way back to earth—we ought to be back in no time.”_ _

__

__She repeats her previous actions. Rolls up her sleeves, sticks her hands in the memory jelly, and thinks only about north England, 2018._ _

__

__Nothing happens. Well, something does happen. The jelly forces her hands out at such a speed that it stings._ _

__“Hey, don’t do that, I thought we got on well enough. No need for violence,” The Doctor reprimands the TARDIS through her ever-growing worry._ _

__

__“Should I freak out now?” Yaz asks._ _

__

__“Probably.”_ _


End file.
